Thursday, June 26, 2014

One of my hobbies is
motorcycle riding. No doubt it is a dangerous past time. A secret to
safe and effective motorcycle riding is to focus on where you are going.
Motorcycles ‘go’ wherever the rider is looking.

This doesn’t mean that you
should ignore everything else. Quite the contrary. In fact, as much is
reasonably possible, when on a motorcycle you must be as aware as possible of everything 360 degrees around you. You have to know that there is a bus coming at you from your left. You have to see the car recklessly changing lanes in your rear vision mirrors. You have to see the parked car that is just about to move away from the kerb.

Photo by David Collopy – Photofit

You must be fully aware of the dangers around you. However, you must not focus on them. If you focus on the dangers your motorcycle will go toward them which is not an outcome you want.

For me riding my
motorcycle provides a real and genuine metaphor for life. In my life I
must maintain focus on where I am going, while being aware of the
dangers around me and taking evasive action as required to steer clear
of them so that I can stay on track to where I want to go.

Too often people get focussed on what they don’t
want and by doing so they draw it into their lives. Poor relationships.
Poor bosses. Never having enough money. Being overweight. This list
could go on. By focusing on what you don’t want you bring it to life and
actually create it.

Traveling the journey of
life requires that you maintain focus on where you want to go, all the
while maintaining awareness of what is going on around you. When danger
comes, take evasive action and focus on where you need to be to get away
from that danger.

This simple principle will
help you to create more life balance and personal success. Keep it in
mind the next time something negative draws your attention. Maintain the
discipline to stay focussed on what you really want.

Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Over the past few weeks I
have conducted a number of teamwork programs. One of the activities that
I enjoy facilitating is asking the participants to form small groups
and to name the characteristics of the effective and ineffective teams
of which they have been members.

Examples
can come from any team experience and I encourage participants to
broader their thinking about their definition of a ‘team’. Some examples
of this definition include:

A workplace

A family

A university study group

A sporting team

A community group

Traveling with friends or family

After providing the participants with enough time to share their stories, I collect the results.

An interesting
characteristic that always comes up for effective teams is trust.
Similarly, a lack of trust is always raised as a characteristic of
ineffective teams.Trust. Easy to say. Hard to give.

Why? It is my view that
trust involves a willingness to be vulnerable. In a team concept, to
trust your team members means that you have faith that they will do what
they say they will do to the best of their ability. When I ask program
participants to describe what it was like to be trusted, they say things
like:“He never looked over
my shoulder. Even though it was the first time I was doing this task, he
asked if I needed any further help and I said that I didn’t. He told me
that I could contact him at any stage if my circumstances changed. If I
were him I’m not sure that I could have trusted me like he did. And
that was special. I think I actually did the job better because I was
trusted. I found it really motivating.”

“She was the leader,
there was no question about that. But when we allocated tasks and she
was clear that we understood what needed to be done, she let us ‘go for
it’. Her door was always open and we knew that, and from time to time we
would go to her for help, either physically or via email or on the
phone. She was always available when we needed her. But she never, ever
behaved like she didn’t trust us. It never felt like she was looking
over our shoulder making sure we did it exactly how she would. And this
was an important project. And we knew that, and we respected that.
That’s why we created such a wonderful result. We were a real team and
she trusted us!”

You can’t fake trust. It
is either genuine, or it isn’t. In today’s complex world it is nearly
impossible to ‘go it alone’. Leaders have to trust their team members to
do their job, even if the leader could do parts of the job ‘better’ on
their own.To trust, however,
requires the leader to be okay with being vulnerable. Trust can’t be
broken if it isn’t given. So, by nature genuinely trusting someone means
that you are prepared for the possibility that they might break your
trust, which in turn makes you vulnerable.

In our world of
accountability and responsibility, trust can become very hard to ‘give’.
If I’m the leader, the ‘buck stops with me.’ If this project fails,
then it’s my fault. It’s complex, isn’t it!

I doubt there is any golden rule with regard to trust. I am a trusting person, but I am not prepared to trust ‘just anyone‘.
I use all my ‘three brains’ (I’ll explain what that term means in a
future article) to decide whether I will trust someone or not.

Each time I trust someone I am conscious of the choice that I have just made. Trust is behavioural, so saying, “I trust you”
means nothing, if all I do is look over your shoulder every step of the
way. Being prepared to be vulnerable is a tension leaders have to
grapple with.

Are you prepared top be vulnerable?

What are your experiences of trust both as a team member and as a leader?How have you managed the ‘vulnerability‘ tension?

The chances are that if
trust is not present then high performance will be a long way away. So
what is the bigger risk, the preparedness to be vulnerable or the
preparedness to under-perform?

My Brand new Beyond Being Good Video Series is now available for leaders who want to know how to create and sustain High Performing Teams.

I highly commend Gary Ryan’s Beyond Being Good video series to people who already are in senior management and leadership roles, to those who are coaching others and to those who are starting their personal leadership journeys. The value and strength of Gary’s style is his messages are conversational, simply expressed and succinct while at every step meaningful and empowering. You are strongly encouraged to consider this video series as a primary tool as you develop your personal leadership style and brand.